Back to artists

year/ 2013

lakwena

Lakwena Maciver is a London-based artist, born in London in 1986, with mixed Ugandan and British heritage. Best known for her murals painted internationally, she has shown work in cities including London, Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and Vienna, both within the gallery and in the public realm.

Her work, primarily text-based, employs a combination of words, pattern and acid-bright color to subtly subvert prevailing mythologies. Her use of text and image re-appropriates the powerful and monumental visual language and lyrical mythologizing of commercial advertising billboards and is informed by decoration both aesthetically and conceptually.

Interested in the role of the artist as mythmaker, Lakwena explores how this translates into contemporary popular culture. Concerned with the significance of how and who we decorate, and what this reflects about our values and beliefs, Lakwena positions kaleidoscopic colors, bold pattern and adornment as powerful signifiers to redefine and reassign value and glory.